What You Need To Know About Renovating Your House

We all have different plans for our homes. Before you begin customising your home, here is what you need to know about adding an addition to your house.

By now I have probably raved enough about how much I like DIY projects and just how heavily my wife weighs in on any changes we make to our home. What you need to know about making an addition to your house is that this is by far one of the best ways to customise your living space without necessarily having to buy an entirely new house.

It is also a wonderful way to mould your living space to fit your family’s specific needs and/or desires. That, however, does not mean that it doesn’t come with its downsides.

Every additional project that you commission for your house is a potential problem and a money-wasting pitfall if not managed right. With that in mind, here are few pertinent things you need to know about making additions to your house.

It will take some time

Of course, this completely depends on the kind of addition that you want made to the house. There are some projects such adding a new bathroom or transforming the attic into an income generating unit that will require proper planning and the help of a professional contractor. These projects will take some time and there is a myriad of potential problems and delays along the way. From bad weather to permits and money, it is often best to have alternatives set up while these projects are ongoing.

It may completely change the way the house looks

Maybe you want a new porch, a new garage or an extension to the house (extra room attached to the main house). In these cases, these additions will completely change the way the house looks both from the outside and the inside. This directly impacts curb appeal and to a great extent, the value of the house. If it is not planned properly, you could completely destroy the way the house looks from outside. It is often best to involve or consult with a professional architect who is highly skilled at what they do. They can render a sketch that will give you an idea of how the addition will look once finished. You could also choose to make the addition to the back of the house to avoid making drastic changes to how the front looks.

It might raise your taxes

Renos can increase the value of your property…which also increases your taxes.

Can renovations raise your taxes? Technically, it can.

If you are doing it right, the addition to your house should increase the value of the home. This, in turn, will raise your taxes based on the new valuation. Before you embark on this kind of project it is often best to carry out a projection of how the addition will affect the value of the home and what that will do to your annual taxes.

It should be an investment

Any addition you make to your home should have a positive financial effect in the end. In fact, based on your calculations, you can even get a loan that will pay for the addition while the interest rates are low. But before you do all this, find out how positively this will affect the price or valuation of your home. You can do this by studying the sales prices of any nearby homes that have the same additions as your own. If the number is positive, then the addition is a good financial decision. If not, then maybe you should rethink it. If you want ideas for projects that improve the value of a home, you may want to check out this Rick Otton podcast on fixing and flipping

These are just a few of the things you need to strongly consider before making additions to your house. But then again, this whole thing could just be because the new addition is something you genuinely want and do not care for the financial ramifications.